‘Biodiversity vs Billionaires’ banner reminds delegates about no planet B

BY VISHAL GULATI

Montreal, Dec 15 (SocialNews.XYZ) Braving freezing rain, activists and protesters on Thursday dropped 80-foot banners reading "Biodiversity versus Billionaires," visible from Montreal's Palais des Congres where world leaders are meeting for a major environmental meeting -- a United Nations Biodiversity Conference known as COP15.

The banners were unfurled to warn delegates that mega-billionaires such as Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, and Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, are "perversely" influencing global decisions about biotechnology and conservation, including restructuring global biodiversity financing in unaccountable ways.

At last week's opening ceremony of the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had already told delegates to "forget the deluded dreams of billionaires -- there is no planet B."

This action comes as the 'Bezos Earth Fund' is expected to announce further billions of dollars in funds toward securing the controversial "30x30" policy that has been branded "the biggest land grab in history".

Although best known for his Amazon.com web business, Bezos also boasts a 'Blue Origin' space business to build the "road to space".

"We are alarmed to see biodiversity megabucks being bestowed by yet another big tech billionaire, known for his ruthless disregard of human rights and ecology," said Jim Thomas of ETC Group, an international watchdog that tracks behavior of tech giants.

"If Bezos gave a damn about a future in harmony with nature, he would begin by properly paying taxes, properly paying his workers and also making reparations for the enormous harm to nature already caused by the resource extraction for his commercial activities."

But Bezos is not the first: In the last six years, civil society groups active at the CBD have denounced the impact of funding by tech billionaires such as Bill Gates and Dustin Moscovitz, Facebook founder, on genetic technologies such as gene drives and geoengineering.

Gates-sponsored lobbyists, science groups and public relations firms like the Alliance for Science, Emerging Ag Inc. and the African Network of Biosafety. Experts have attempted to influence official UN expert groups, influence negotiation text, and coordinate with the African Union to advocate for gene drive experiments in Africa, they said.

Gates has also invested millions to promote geoengineering i.e. climate-altering technologies to attempt to undo a hard-won moratorium at the CBD, they add.

Gates invested heavily in Target Malaria Project, which is developing gene drive mosquitoes for release in Africa.

"Africans refuse to be the guinea pigs of gene drives! The solution to malaria lies in biodiversity, hygiene and sanitation," said Ali Tapsoba, President of Terre A Vie, an NGO based in Burkina Faso, attending COP15.

"Billionaires and the corporate lobby should not influence the decision making when there is an urgent need to save us from the biodiversity crisis," added Thibault Rehn, from Quebec-based Vigilance OGM.

Jurassic Park actor James Cromwell and Avaaz on Thursday called on leaders to "Stop the Human Asteroid" at the beginning of the three-day ministerial segment at the COP15.

COP15 host Canada says it will continue to demonstrate a leadership role on biodiversity and nature conservation, with Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault and Yukon's Minister of Environment Nils Clarke announcing the Canada-Yukon Nature Agreement, the first agreement of its kind, to advance nature conservation and protection across the territory.

The Canadian government will invest $20.6 million to implement the agreement and help protect nature. This will support Indigenous leadership in conservation; increased protection of sensitive habitats; and recovery actions for species at risk, such as the northern mountain caribou, the grizzly bear, and vascular plants, as well as the protection and conservation of new land in the Yukon.

Three decades after the adoption of the CBD, the international community is now entering the final days of negotiations for an agreement to reverse the startling decline of species and habitats.

Included in this global plan is a target that scientists say is essential if "we hope to address the biodiversity and climate crises before the planet reaches irreversible tipping points". For this the protection of at least 30 per cent of land and sea by 2030 is must.

Over 100 countries support the target, but some delegations are pushing back on this level of ambition. Given accelerated loss of biodiversity and the repeated call by experts on the need for action, it is essential for the world's governments to maintain the ecological integrity of an international policy framework that could define ocean health for decades to come, say national and indigenous leaders and policy experts who weigh in on the dangers of falling short of 30X30 in the final biodiversity agreement.

The global 30x30 goal has been endorsed by the G7 and is a pillar of a UN Convention on Biological Diversity agreement, known as the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) that will be finalised at COP15 in Montreal with only days left to iron out a complex yet urgent global deal for nature.

The GBF is considered to be as important to the fate of the planet as the Paris Agreement. The 30x30 land and ocean goal is supported by 112 countries from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, nearly all of whom are members of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People.

It is critical that this goal be implemented with full respect for the rights and contributions of indigenous People and local communities.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)

Source: IANS